tell me about it

“What’s that noise in the background?” Puppy asks over the phone from camp. “Oh,” I reply, “it’s the construction.”

“At this time?” He’s incredulous and not a little pissed on my behalf, and it’s not hard to see why - it’s 11.45pm and they’re still going at it. If I remember correctly (based on many irate calls my parents have put in to our neighborhood police post, complaining about Hokkien auctions and their like going on at night), all noise-generating activities are supposed to end by 10.30pm.

In fact, for HDB, contractors are supposed to end all noise-generating activities after 6pm.

Apparently my dad has the direct number of the project manager of the construction site (which is located directly outside my window). He SMSed the project manager, informing him that the construction was still going on and asking if they could cease the noise, please.

“Thanks for the feedback,” the SMS reply came. “Will look into it.”

I don’t know what he did, but he sure didn’t stop the noise. We ended up calling the neighborhood police post, but just as we began dialling, we saw a squad car pull up at the entrance of the construction site. I cheered.

This is the view from my bedroom window:

That orange blurry thing is the excavator. They were digging around this large cement column and making a hell of a clanky racket. The little blue light on the right, hidden within the trees, is the squad car. (Apologies for crappy night-time photography, couldn’t get long enough exposure.)

The men walked over to the entrance to talk to the police officers, who I assume asked them to stop working and stop the noise. There was some gesticulation and the discussion took quite awhile (and the excavator was happily still clanking away in the background) but eventually the excavator was shut off, a crane pulled the cement column out of the ground, and the lights went off.

The construction site is owned by Simlian (which, incidentally, I keep accidentally reading as “SIMIAN” or “SIMI LAN”, depending on my mood). Apparently they are building a 39-storey condominium, “offering panoramic views of Bishan Park and the city skyline”, and also effectively “completely destroying HDB homeowners’ panoramic view of Bishan Park and the city skyline”, and “removing one of the biggest reasons we moved here in the first place because there was a great beautiful empty field separating my block from the next”, and “creating an eyesore in the middle of the street”, and “ruining every single bloody Saturday morning that I try to sleep in”, and “creating a main push factor for us to quickly evacuate the area and move away”.